As I alluded to last post, at the end of last week I was
riddled with anxiety about my future. Sunday morning the forecast was rain so I
couldn’t even do my weekly early morning walk around the deck. I felt like a
pony the stable boy had forgotten to let out. At 9 AM I practically exploded
off the ship, rain jacket and baseball cap packed in my knapsack. Since I
didn’t have much internet to do it was time to get some bucket list items taken
care of. I sat by myself in Café Du Monde and felt immediately better listening
to street corner jazz and inhaling puffs of powdered sugar. After finishing my
café au lait I trotted down to the French Open Market where I spied all the
knick knacks and bought myself a void-filling souvenir t-shirt. Peace filled by
body toes up. Grey clouds camped above The Big Easy, but I was smiling. I
bought the essentials at Walgreens. I smacked on a free sample of candied
praline. And then, I went to a mystic shop that’s been in business since 1912
to get my tea leaves read.
My medium said some things—at times eerie and other times
improbable, but the experience of sloshing the tea, sitting in the curtained creepy
room, and holy cow, hearing thunder boom while a woman with frizzy hair and
purple eyeliner said certainly what lay ahead? A priceless NOLA experience. I
bustled along singing like Don Lockwood through voodoo doll gift shops and
cobblestone. Right before embark I got a kale smoothie and some buttermilk
drops to consume in my little dungeon. This would be a good week I decided.
ZPill asked me later if he thought the physic could actually tell my fortune,
and I said I don’t think so. I think she can just read pieces of what’s already
inside me. How exciting that there is a universe in there. And I am not at the
will of much besides what I choose.
Instead of my typical Cozumel day I took a ferry to Playa
del Carmen—a ritzier Mexican tourist town. It was very clean and pretty and
crystalline. I avoided everyone and listened to the playlist I made for the
improv tournament my team traveled to in 2012. ZPill and I found a fancy as
heck breakfast spot in a plaza. Donuts on pretty plates and tiny colanders of
yogurt. Dudes at stands usually call out to those of us who are obvious
tourists (white people) and usually I ignore them, but this particular guy was
pointing at pictures of caves. And Adventure Alice was awakened. Next thing I
know I’m alone in a cab headed to underwater caves.
They were incredible and all of my castmates who didn’t go
because they thought $50 was much too much are idiots. When my little pod of
eight people came to the first entrance I didn’t even see that we were about to
step into water. Because the water was so
glasslike it looked like it didn’t even exist. Oh but we did step in. In
lifejackets we floated around the cavern. I spent most of my time shining my
flashlight up to see the hoards of bats all snuggling with each other then periodically
getting annoyed with my beam and fluttering about.
It was such a once in a lifetime experience to swim down a
cool ancient pool and peer into an abyss of stalagmites. Sometimes we had to
swim in very narrow little passages and our guide once asked us to sit
perfectly still and turn off all our lights. It was the darkest dark. My
favorite part was when our guide called us into a creepy crevice one at a time,
had us put on our masks, and then he pushed our shoulders underwater so we
could see the endless trail of underground cave. What was air and what was I
swimming in and what was forming above? It was so hard to tell. The very last
thing I did was take off my life jacket and swan dive into the deepest hole of
the murky pool. Just another day at work!
I crossed West End off my Honduras bucket list. I got lost
on my way to the beach and had to settle not to snorkel with friends but
instead to journal alone with a frozen lemonade. I drank it out of pure
desperation from wandering around in a near-hallucinatory heat state. Not all
was lost. I found a sour cream chocolate donut. The chocolate was made
in-house. I’m not mad. Things I am kind of over: laying too long in the sun,
people having drunken conversations with me, not having the ability to text.
Also, MB got 110 bug bites on the beach I was supposed to, so sometimes it
ain’t bad to never arrive.
One thing I noticed this week is Twitter is too overwhelming
for me. I barely look at it because I use precious online minutes to email
pretty exclusively. Occasionally in a café with endless Internet powers I
Instagram. But Twitter is so much so quickly. After twenty seconds of scrolling
my brain is on fire. My attention span has increased significantly. I stand on
the deck, facing forward with lips locked for forty minutes of crew drill. I
get writer’s block on a deck chair, close my notebook, and have no other option
but to watch waves. No commercials in pirated TV, no advertisements in my
“commute.”
Three comedians is a treacherous number. Three creates an
audience or a team, and it’s becoming something I actively avoid. In real life
I can hack most anything because eventually I go home. But this is home. Person
A jokes, Person B is annoyed, but Person C laughs. A and C never drop it. I
have played all three parts and none are fun.
Instead of going to Belize I parked in the atrium next to
the bar that also serves, like, four espresso drinks. This is the closest thing
to having a café workday on the boat. I poked at my screenplays. I watched Thelma and Louise and was inspired to
break some rules. So, my new thing is getting a plate of cheese cubes at lunch,
shoving them in a mug, stuffing the mug in my backpack, and smuggling the
cheese back to my mini fridge. Real outlaw.
During the 9 PM sketch show my brain exploded. I started a
whisper as the show started and realized my mic was live and very hot. The top
of our act began with a weird hiss. “Oh man, don’t screw up again,” I thought
and twenty minutes later I missed a chair set. I just forget where we were in
the running order and froze. “Okay, for real no more screw ups!” I lectured my
own brain. And then at the top of a scene I said the flat wrong line. Everyone
went off auto-pilot and navigated back to the meaning of the scene like tiny
robots. It’s a bummer to finish a show for hundreds of clapping people, rip off
your mic, and say, “I’m sorry everyone.” I went to the gym to run. I started
thinking about my mistakes and realized they weren’t that bad. They only seemed
bad because we’re all usually so polished. I do think I have entered a new
phase of comedy since being here: the crisp professional, which does mean I
will be harder on myself sometimes, but it also means I am doing better work.
Saturday night I like to have a lasagna roll at one of the
sit-down restaurants before the “adult” improv show. It’s become a tradition.
Entertainers are allowed to be seated between 8:30 and 9 PM. ZPill, MB, Folds,
and I got flossy and arrived at 8:35. We were turned away. We walked to the
opposite side of the ship and were told we should try the other place.
Dejectedly, we went up to the buffet. A meat bonanza night. Ribs and pork chops
and potatoes with bacon. I ate a lot of wilted lettuce smothered with balsamic
and felt sorry for myself. EVEN THOUGH I still didn’t have to prepare or pay
for my meal, I would have gladly done either to avoid the World’s Saddest
Salad. But the four of us ate our grody little dinners in full performance
attire while making jokes and truly enjoying each other’s company. Although it’s
not possible to completely avoid annoyance with one another sometimes, we are a
family.
My favorite part of the week is standing on the deck
post-final show. The cool air refreshes me and the land in the distance tells
me we’re close to port. Cell service. Freedom. Louisiana culture. We were in
early this week, so my texts were sending around 11 PM. I was excited and
promptly answered the bevy of SMS that flooded my phone. A dude with a mullet
complimented me on the show and lingered a bit too long. I nicely ended the
conversation and returned to The Internet. Ten minutes later he was back
getting my drink order. No thanks, I said, and he sheepishly left. I hoped he
didn’t feel too bad. But then he came back in ten minutes to ask if I wanted
water. Nope. Ten minutes later he said I was stalking him. At this point I
wanted to leave the public areas, but my phone would only work on the deck. Ten
minutes later he said I shouldn’t be wearing my performance clothes if I don’t
want people to notice me. Did I want to change in his room? I moved locations.
He found me. He said we should do private improv for half an hour. I said no.
He said he would bring Viagra. I told him firmly to leave me alone. He did.
But now I realized I was nearby a very interesting gang. The
word “ghost” kept creeping in the air, so I asked, “Is this some kind of ghost
conference?” Yeah, it actually was. 200 paranormal experts were onboard this
week. I wish I had learned sooner! I asked a few questions. The clearly most
famousy-like guy told a story about eating at a haunted diner that could never be found again and I was
immediately grossed out by his ego. I honed in on a kind gal with blue hair who
was happy to answer my questions and talk about her time as a spiritual
investigator. MULLET GUY HAD THE NERVE TO CUT THROUGH A FLOCK OF PEOPLE TO TELL
THEM WE WERE CLOSE AND WE’D BE LEAVING NOW. I publically told him I was
uninterested in talking at all and the ladies gave him some Ew looks, so he
slunk away. Blue hair and I exchanged info, but not before Mullet came back
with his business card. I wanted to tear it up and throw it in the ocean, but I
put it in my pocket because 1. Can’t litter in the ocean. 2. He’s still a
passenger and I’m still an employee, and I can’t be rude to him despite his
outright harassment. I’m just tired of being a woman for the moment.
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:)
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